Abstract

Yangming Learning was first introduced to Joseon Korea during sixteenth century. It was well accepted by King Seonjo and a few open-minded scholarsuntil Toegye fiercely dismissed it as heresy. Although Yangming Learning was denounced academically and politically throughout Joseon period, there were still progressive scholars with broader interest, searching for alternative theories other than Zhu Xi’s neo-Confucianism; for example, Nam Eon-gyeong, Heo Gyun, Yi Sugwang, Jang Yu and Choe Myeong-gil were among first scholars who studied and cited various theories including Yangming Learning. Yangming Learning in Korea in such an adverse circumstance, however, reached at its height when HagokJeong Jedu creatively embraced Yangming Learning and proposed it as an advanced, more resourceful version of Confucianism. He introduced in his own terms the essentials of Yangming’s ideas such as ‘innate good knowing,’ and ‘oneness of knowledge and practice’; further, he developed his own theories such as ‘life-principle’ that emphasized the physical vitality of principles and ‘authentic mind’ which is the honest and guileless self-knowledge and mental attitude. Later scholars who supported and expanded Yangming Learning was called as ‘later Hagok school,’and they continuously exemplified the practical and genuine spirit of one’s innate good knowing. Contemporary Yangming scholars such as Pak Eunshik and Jeong Inbo inherited such a spirit and urged Korean people under Japanese colonial rule to unfetter themselves from emptiness and pretension and take an immediate action out of one’s original, authentic heart and soul.